Kimm,
There exists both civil and criminal libel. For starters, read
ww.tpub.com/content/photography/14130/css/14130_176.htm.
When Ray writes a post on UC-list, he is acting in the public realm. He
is no longer private, and neither you nor I are either at this minute.
This, perhaps, explains in part why some people have become so uncivil
on the list: they are speaking as if they were in private. But they are
not. Each of us is addressing a crowd of hundreds, most of them
strangers. Both Al Krigman and Melani Lamond are public figures; surely
Ray and I are too.
When a public figure like Ray expresses an evidently malicious
falsehood, it is always fair to note it in public.
Public or private, a habit of speaking persistent falsehoods is not a
good thing. It is not excused by labeling your targets as "political".
Lying about someone whose policies you disagree with is a tantalizing
temptation, but it is still a perversion of truth. In other words -- if
you want to bust your opponent, you still can't create fake evidence
against them. It is not good for society or for this list when people do so.
-- Tony West
Kimm Tynan wrote:
Tony,
To my observation, Ray's posts are typically criticisms of
institutions and their activities in the public arena, which is
entirely appropriate in an open democratic society. Of course, those
institutions are made up of individual people, and often criticism or
analysis of the activities of those institutions necessarily involves
the leaders or other participants who act for the institution, but
that comes with the territory of choosing to participate in public and
civic life. If people take criticism of their institutions
personally, or want to play a public role without being publicly
accountable for their decisions and acts, they should get out of the
public arena. That's a very different thing than singling out an
individual for a campaign of relentless, nasty, personal attacks on
private matters. Characterizing Ray's criticisms or questioning of
civic institutions as "attacking neighbors" confuses the individual
and the institution, the public realm and the private. It's also "spin."
And libel is not a "crime."
Kimm
